


The Price

by likesflowers



Series: Ulysses [1]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Avengers: Endgame (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Infinity Gems
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-26
Updated: 2019-04-26
Packaged: 2020-02-04 15:51:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18607672
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/likesflowers/pseuds/likesflowers
Summary: ENDGAME SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERS SPOILERSThe price was always the same: A soul for a soul.





	The Price

He lands in the odd twilight light of Vormir that lends everything a dreamlike air. The mountain looms, but the only way forwards is up. As he nears the peak, the crisp smell of snow and the bitter wind can't but remind him of the last time he was on a mountain, waiting on a train. Perhaps it's because a part of his mind is already preparing himself to meet Schmidt again.

When he does, he isn't prepared in the least.

"Captain, I am not surprised to find you here. The taste for power is quite sweet, is it not?" The floating Dementor shape is unfamiliar, but the voice is exactly how he remembered it. A little less arrogant, a little more knowing, but still the same stuff that nightmares are made of. Steve doesn't say anything, just hauls himself the last few feet to stand in front of the figure, fingers automatically clenching against an absent shield strap.

"You're too late. The stone is gone. Go beg the archer for it." The figure floats into the light, clearly aiming for a dramatic reveal.  
Steve smiles wryly. "Your intel is out of date, Schmidt." He pauses, wanting to say something about how he'd crushed Hydra under his heel like the vermin it was, but..out here, on a windswept mountain at the far edge of the galaxy, all that seemed alien and far away. So he just holds out his hand, gently unfolding his fingers to reveal the warm golden glow resting in his palm. "He told me the price--a soul for a soul."

Schmidt's face does something convoluted which, on a normal human, would probably look like a confused frown. "What has been done cannot be undone, Captain. The past is immutable."

Steve doesn't move. "Exactly. So returning this will not undo all that we've accomplished, but it will restore the time stream. And the price doesn't change, not for a thing like this. So step aside."

Schmidt floats higher, his tattered cloak billowing in a show of power. His voice suddenly deepens and bounces off the rocks around them as if emanating from them. "You are not welcome here, Captain. Leave, before I extract a price from you that you cannot afford to pay."

Steve feels himself smirk, a little. It feels good. "You're just the gatekeeper. You can't change the rates, bud, anyone can see that." Behind the figure, he can see the plateau Clint told him about, the open sky above the edge.

He looks Schmidt in the eye, offers a distraction. "When you told me you saw the future, Schmidt, there were no flags. Was that because..." he pauses dramatically, "no Brooklyn-born boy would ever lower himself to root for the Yankees?"

With that, he pulls his arm back, throws a pitch worthy of Dazzy Vance, and watches the stone sail right past the Red Skull and hurtle right over the edge. He hears Schmidt's voice echoing, "Noooo" and then there is a clap of darkness.

\------------------------

He's flat on his back in a thermal pool, warm and confused. Something brushes his palm, then suddenly there is a familiar light weight pressing painfully on his sternum, a familiar hand wrapped around his throat. He has his arms up automatically even as he finds himself smiling, a helpless, surprised thing.

"Steve?" she asks. She's breathing heavily.  The hand at his throat loosens slightly. "What...what happened?"

"We won."

Her eyes lock onto his, sad and hopeful all at once. "We stopped him? He's gone?"

Steve just nods, trying (and failing) to dislodge her grip on his throat.

Her eyes widen, horrified. "Clint?"

Steve reaches up, covers her tiny hand with his. "He's fine, he's with Laura and the kids. We DID IT, Nat. They're back."

She stares at him, breathing frantic. He reaches up, grips her waist and shoves her off his chest so he can sit up. She lets him. Her hand is still under his, resting against the pulse of his neck.

She seems...baffled. "Then how am I here? Oh god, Steve, tell me you didn't undo it. I'm not worth all that."

A sense memory of another voice saying the same thing jabs him from his past. He squeezes her hand gently, pulls it off his neck but keeps cradling it. "No, Nat, the past can't be undone, remember?" He pauses. "I know I said we don't trade lives, and we don't, Nat, but...I had to put them back where we got them, and the price was always the same, and I'm not sorry that it is, not when you're sitting here next to me on this godforsaken hellhole of a planet."

She laughs wetly, once, but her breathing has returned to normal and her head seems to be back in the game. She looks at him shrewdly in the dim light. "What did it cost, Steve?"

She had always known it wouldn't be free.

He sighs, looking away before he makes himself say it. "Tony."

To his ears, her in-drawn breath is so much louder than the wind. He looks back over, then away. "He saved us all, Nat. Thanos is gone. His legions are gone. The only thing left to do is get the stones back where they started from, and then we're done." He can't look at her, she knows him too well. She can probably read it in his face anyway, though.

She waits a long moment before speaking. "How many more?"

"Just the one," he says. She sighs, and he can hear what she doesn't say. He responds to it all the same. "It'll be fine, Nat." He looks over at her, finally, at her gorgeous face framed by hair that's fallen out of her braid, wet in sweat and water and tears. She's so tiny and so strong and he missed her so goddamn much, misses her again already.

"Here," he says, reaching for his belt and pulling out a tube of Pym particles. "I'll give you the new coordinates, you can skip the dramatics and go straight to the end. They're already expecting me then, so you'll have have a welcome-home brigade you can scare the shit out of. It'll be fun."

She looks at his face for a long moment, then narrows her eyes at him. He didn't even see her glance down at his belt, but she says, "And leave you with just the one trip? Come on, Steve."

The corner of his mouth tips up. "Where I'm going there are Pym particles for the taking, Nat. It'll be just fine. I'll see you on the other side."

She squeezes his hand, smiling sadly with her eyes. They both know that something being there for the taking isn't the same as actually taking it.

After a long, long moment, her eyes harden with something he doesn't quite understand. "Everything is fine, then? Back to normal? I mean, besides..." she doesn't say Tony's name, doesn't have to.

Steve nods once, decisively. "The world's in good hands there." he pauses. "Then. Whatever."

She purses her lips once, then smiles, closes her hand around the vial and presses it into her time regulator without looking. She sighs and smiles. "You big idiot. I am going to miss you so much."

She leans in, presses a fond kiss to his cheek. He hopes in vain she can't feel the tears on it, then wonders why. She's always seen his heart, whether it was on his sleeve or not. She pulls back, smiles at him. Squeezes his hand one last time, then lets go. "See you on the other side."

And then she's gone.

Steve looks around, still sitting in the pool of water not quite warm enough to steam. There's a mountain in the distance and an oversized moon on the horizon and the road that got him here is far more twisted than he could ever have imagined, and he's not done. Not quite yet.

He stands up, steps onto solid ground. Loads up his last vial of Pym particles and makes one last trip.


End file.
